I had a group called The Evergreen Bluesshoes in LA at a time when the Byrds started out here. And they had a hugh influence on me in '64 and '65. I was playing with my group nightclub music, dressed in suits and ties, 4 hours a night and 6 days a week, making pretty good money in the LA circuit. This is something that hardly happens anymore but that's where you really lurn to play your instrument. Every nght during 5, 6 years. It was pretty straight as the world was pretty straight right then. The Beatles were coming in and we kinda Beatle-izedourselves. And one night I went to see the Byrds. They were making a splash with their new sound in LA and Frisco, new image and new philosophy becoming the American Beatles with what was called Folkrock. Roger McGuinn, genius as he sometimes is, had converted from a folksinger with a guitar to a folksinger with an electric 12 string guitar. It was a brandnew sound, a brandnew image. I was there and that changed my attitude and how I wanted to play my music. I know that they influenced thousands of peopleand even more musicians along the Westcoast . We reformed the Evergreen Bluesshoes, gave up the nightclubs, changed our image, took a long shot chance and had an album out on AMOS records which didn't do anything. It was a concept album but it got lost between all the albums of similar groups. And my dream was to be as succesful as the Byrds doing that type of thing. Fortunately I was asked to join the very group; a group that I idolized and were my heroes.
Skip Battin

I met Kim Fowley during a period I was part of a duo called Skip & Flip. This was way back in 1959. This was before the nightclub jobs; in 1959 and 1960. Flip was Gary Paxton. He and I started playing together in Tucson,Arizona. We recorded a record down there and to our surprise, made the Top 10.so we went on the road and had a couple of good years. We also had a couple of records in the charts. And when we did a recording session in Hollywood Kim walked in with a friend of his. He weighted 130 lbs and was 6.5 feet high, a striking figure.
Skip Battin